Romans 7

CHAPTER 7THEME: Shackles of a saved soul; struggle of a saved soulThe theme of sanctification began in the latter part of chapter 5 where it was “potential sanctification.” Then in chapter 6 we saw “positional sanctification”; that is, identification with Christ in His death and resurrection. We are to reckon on that, present ourselves to Him, and trust him to live the Christian life through us. Now in the chapter before us there are two subjects: the shackles of a saved soul and the struggle of a saved soul. The Law cannot produce sanctification in the life of the believer; it merely shackles it. Neither can the believer produce sanctification in his life by depending on the desire of the new nature. Just to say you want to live for Christ won’t get you anywhere. You need to present yourself to Him, recognizing that you are joined to the living Christ. The importance of this chapter cannot be overemphasized. Let me give you a quotation from Dr. Griffith Thomas: “Dr. Alexander Whyte once said that whenever a new book on Romans comes out and is sent to him by its publisher for consideration, he at once turns to the comments on chapter VII, and according to the view taken of that important section he decides on the value of the entire work.” Then Dr. Frederic Godet makes this bold statement: “But it is a hundred to one when a reader does not find the Apostle Paul logical, that he is not understanding his thought.” Paul is certainly logical all through this chapter. When I was a young man, a very wonderful itinerant Bible teacher, who was a great blessing to multitudes of folk, was a great help to me. He was never a pastor, and he taught that we are to detour around the seventh chapter of Romans; we are not to live there. We are to get into the eighth chapter of Romans. For several years I taught that philosophy also. But I have now been a pastor for a long time, and I have come to the conclusion that we are not to miss the seventh chapter of Romans. I am sure that many a pastor wishes his church members would get into the seventh of Romans, because the man who gets into the seventh of Romans will get into the eighth of Romans.

I am of the opinion that the way into the eighth chapter is through the seventh chapterat least that is the route most of us take. Well, you are not to detour around it, because if you do, you are not on the direct route. It reminds me of a jingle: To dwell above With the saints in love Oh, that will be glory! But to stay below With the saints I know That’s another story! In this “struggle of a saved soul” a believer reaches out and grabs a straw. Sometimes that straw is the Mosaic Law. And he finds that he has gotten hold, not of a straw, nor even of a life preserver, but actually of a sack of cement, and it is pulling him under. He can’t live that way. As a result, multitudes of the saints accept defeat as normal Christian living. There are many saints who are satisfied to continue on the low level of a sad, shoddy, sloppy life. God doesn’t want us to come that route. The “powerless sanctification” of this chapter shows us the way we are not to live. Many years ago a cartoon appeared in a daily paperwhen it was popular to make things and repair things yourselfshowing a mild-mannered man in a “Do-It-Yourself Shop.” His hands were bandaged, and one arm was in a sling. He was asking the clerk behind the counter, “Do you have any undo-it-yourself kits?” Today we as believers need to know that we cannot live the Christian life; we need to learn that we cannot do it ourselves. In fact, we need an undo-it-yourself kit; that is, we need to turn our lives over to the Spirit of God, yield to Him, and let Him do for us what we cannot do ourselves. The Mosaic Law is where many Christians go to try to find Christian living. Now Paul is going to show that the Mosaic Law has no claim on the believer. Actually, the Law condemned man to die; it was a ministration of condemnation (see 2Co_3:9). You don’t contact the judge who sentenced you to die and ask him how you are going to live!

Romans 7:1

SHACKLES OF A SAVED SOUL"Know ye not" is an expression that occurs again and again in the writings of Paul. Putting it into the positive, it is, “Are you so ignorant?” When Paul says, “Know ye not,” you may be sure that the brethren did not know. “I speak to them that know the law.” The Mosaic Law had had over a millennium’s trial with God’s chosen people in a land that was favorable and adaptable to the keeping of the Lawthe Law was not only given to a people but to a land. Yet Israel did not keep the Law. Remember that Stephen in his defense said that they had “…received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it” (Act_7:53). Peter calls it a yoke “which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” (Act_15:10). Now Paul will give an illustration that I think is a great one. Unfortunately folk try to draw from it rules for marriage and divorce. But Paul is not talking about marriage and divorce here. Rather, he is illustrating by a well-established and stated law that a wife is bound to a living husband and that death frees her from the status of wife.

Romans 7:2

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but when the husband dies, she is completely discharged from the law of her husband. In other words, if he is dead, she is no longer married to him.

Romans 7:3

Some folk insist that divorce and remarriage is not permitted under any circumstances according to this verse. We need to thoroughly understand the background. What would happen under the Mosaic Law if a man or woman were unfaithful in marriage? Suppose a woman is married to a man who is a philanderer, and he is unfaithful to her. What happens? He is stoned to death.

When the old boy is lying under a pile of stones, she is free to marry another, of course. In our day we cannot apply the Mosaic Lawwe can’t stone to death the unfaithful. And Paul is not giving us instructions on divorce and remarriage here; he will do that elsewhere. The point Paul is making here is that when a woman’s husband dies, she is no longer a wife, she is a single woman again. This is, I think, a universal principle among civilized people. There are heathen people who put the wife to death when the husband dies, but civilized folk have never followed that practice. Paul goes on to amplify the law of husband and wife. He brings into sharp focus her status in the case that her husband is alive and again in the case that the husband is dead.

Romans 7:4

In other words: Accordingly, my brethren, you (old Adamic nature) also were done to death as to the Law; the Law was killed to you by means of the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to Him who rose from the dead, that we might bear fruit unto God. The wife represents the believer in Christ. The second husband represents Christ. We are joined to Him. But who is the first husband? Let’s see what some have said. Dr. William Sanday interprets him as the old state before conversion: “The (first) Husbandthe old state before conversion to Christianity.” Dr. Stifler concludes that the first husband is Christ crucified. Dr. William R. Newell held that the first husband set forth Adam and our position in him. Personally, I consider the latter the best interpretation, because all the way through this section, beginning at chapter 5 where there were two headshipsAdam and Christwe have seen the first Adam and the last Adam, the first man and the second man. We are joined to Adam through the old Adamic nature. The Law was given to control the old Adamic nature, but it failed through the infirmity of the flesh. The Law actually became a millstone around the neck of the Israelite. It never lifted him up, but it kept him in slavery for fifteen hundred years. Its demands had to be met, but man could not meet them.

It was indeed a ministration of condemnation. If the Gentile had to adopt the Law when he became a believer, there was no hope for him either. Paul says that Christ died in His body, we are identified with Christ in His death, and now we are dead to the Law and the Law is dead to us. That first husband is Adam, and we are no longer joined to him. Now we are joined to the living Christ. We died with Him and we have been raised with Him.

He is the second husband, the living Christ, who enables us to bear fruit. We know Christ no longer after the flesh; it is the resurrected Christ we are joined to. The Law is not given to the new man in Christold things have passed away and all things have become new (see 2Co_5:17). The believer is not under law but under gracethis is the ipso facto statement of Scripture. Believer, believe it! It is so, for God says it! Now let me illustrate this with a very ridiculous illustration that I heard when I was a student in seminary down in Georgia. Back in the antebellum days, before the Civil War, there was a plantation owner, a very fine, handsome man married to a beautiful woman, and they lived happily in a lovely home. Then he became sick and died suddenly. It was a great heartbreak to her, for she loved him dearly, and she did a strange and morbid thing. She had his body embalmed, placed in a sitting position in a chair in an air-tight glass case, and situated in the great hallway of her lovely southern home. The minute you opened the door, you were looking at him.

Well, her friends realized that this wouldn’t do, so they urged her to go away and travel for awhile. So she went north, then traveled abroad for almost two years. During that time she met another man, fell in love with him and married him. On their honeymoon they came to her plantation home. The new bridegroom did as a new bridegroom is supposed to do, he picked her up and carried her over the threshold. When he put her down, he was staring into the face of a man in a glass case.

He said to his bride, “Who is that?” Well, she had forgotten about him. She told him that he was her first husband. They both decided it was time to bury him, which was the proper thing to do. She was married to a new man; the old man was dead. Now I confess that that is a ridiculous story; I sometimes wonder if it really ever happened. Whether or not the story is true, it is true that there are many believers today who have dug up the Lawin fact, they have never buried the Law.

They have the Law sitting in a glass case, and they are trying to live by the Law in the strength of the old Adamic nature! How ridiculous! The believer is joined to the living Christ today, and the Christian’s life is to please Him. Oh, how important that is. I can’t overemphasize it.

Romans 7:5

Face this squarely, my friend. Are you able in your own strength to keep the Law? The Law was a straitjacket put on the flesh to control it. The flesh rebelled and chafed under the irksome restraint of the Law. The flesh had no capacity or desire to follow the injunctions of the Law. The flesh broke out of the restraint imposed by law and therefore brought down the irrevocable penalty for breaking the Law, which is death.

Romans 7:6

“But now we are delivered from the law” means discharged or annulled from the Law. Notice the paradoxes in this section. In verse Rom_7:4 it was having died, they bear fruit; here in verse Rom_7:6 they have been discharged, yet they serve. Today we are to serve Him, not on the basis or the motive, “I ought to do it,” but now, “I delight to do it because I want to please Christ.” The believer is set free, but now in love he gives himself to the Savior as he never could do under the Law. Note this little bit of verse I used to carry in my Bible when I was a student in college and seminary: I do not work my soul to save; That work my Lord hath done. But I will work like any slave For love of God’s dear Son. We serve Christ because we love Him. Our Lord asked Simon Peter the direct question, “…Lovest thou me? …” (Joh_21:17). That is the question that faces you and me. God’s question to the lost world is: “What will you do with My Son who died for you?” However, His question to the believer is: “Lovest thou me?” The Christian life is Christ living His life through us today. We can’t do it ourselves, nor can we do it by the law. There is nothing wrong with the Lawlet’s understand thatthe problem is with us.

Romans 7:7

Let me try to bring out the meaning a little more clearly: What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Away with the thought! On the contrary, I should not have been conscious of sin, except through law; for I had not known illicit desire (coveting). But sin, getting a start through the commandment, produced in me all manner of illicit desire. For apart from the Law sin is dead. Paul, you recall, began his argument way back in the sixth chapter of Romans with this expression, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin?” Now again he says, “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin?” In the first part of this chapter Paul seems to be saying that law and sin are on a par. If release from sin means release from law, then are they not the same? Paul clarifies this. He says, “Perish the thought!” Paul will now show that the Law is good; it reveals God’s will. The difficulty is not with the Law; the difficulty is with us. The flesh is at fault. Paul becomes very personal in the remainder of this chapter. Notice that he uses the first person pronouns: I, me and myself; they are used forty-seven times in this section. The experience is the struggle Paul had within himself. He tried to live for God in the power of his new nature. He found it was impossible. The Law revealed to Paul the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The Law was an X-ray of his heart. That is what the Law will do for you if you put it down on your life. The Word of God is called a mirror; it reveals what we are. If you have a spot on your face, the mirror will show it to you, but it can’t remove the spot. However, God has a place to remove it: There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. The Law reveals the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The Law is not at fault, but the old Adamic nature is the culprit. The admonition of prohibition contained in the Law makes clear the weakness of the flesh. It shows we are sinners. Here in California a test was made some time ago. A mirror was put in a very prominent public place, and the test was to see if men or women looked at themselves more. I felt it was an unnecessary test; I could have told them that women looked at themselves more. But unfortunately, the test proved otherwise. We all like to see ourselves. We all like to look in a mirrorexcept one: the Word of God. We don’t like to look in that one because it reveals us as sinners, horrible, lost sinners.

Romans 7:9

The Law is a ministry of condemnation. The Law can do nothing but condemn us.

Romans 7:10

Oh, the tragedy of the person who seeks to live by the Law! It does not lead him to life. While it is true that God had said, “This do and thou shalt live” (see Deu_8:1), the doing of it was the difficulty. The fault was not in the Law, but in the one who thought the Law would bring life an power. It did neither. It merely revealed the weakness, inability, and the sin of mankind. If there had been a law which could have given life, God would have given it (see Gal_3:21). But life and Christian living do not come by the Law. Let me illustrate this. A car is a very useful thing. But a car in the hands of an incapable driver can be a danger and a menace. In fact, it can be a death-dealing instrument. The fault is not with the car; the fault is with the driver. The problem is man; he is the culprit.

Romans 7:11

Sin is personified again here and is a tempter. Sin tempts every man outside the Garden of Eden relative to himself and God. In the Garden of Eden Satan made man believe that God could not be trusted and that man was able to become god, apart from God. Sin, like a Pied Piper, leads the children of men into believing that they can keep the Law and that God is not needed. This is the false trail that he has been talking about, which leads to death. It was ordained to life, Paul says, and he found it led him to death. Sin at last will kill, for the Law did bring the knowledge of sin, and man is without excuse. Again, the difficulty is not with the Law, but within man.

Romans 7:12

The problem is a human problem. Man is the “x” in the equation of life. He is the uncertain one, the one who cannot be trusted.

Romans 7:13

Is this a strange paradox? Is it a perversion of a good thing? The commandment was totally incapable of communicating life. Man must have recourse to help from the outside, because the commandment intensified the awfulness of sin.

Romans 7:14

This is Paul’s testimony. “We know” was the general agreement among believers. The Law is spiritual in the sense that it was given by the Holy Spirit and is part of the Word of God. In other words, that is an expression in Scripture. For example, the rock is called spiritual in 1Co_10:4, for it was produced by the Holy Spirit. Israel in the wilderness had spiritual meat and spiritual drink in this sensethat is, the Spirit of God provided it. “But I am carnal.” This means, “I am in the flesh [Greek sarkinos].” It does not mean the meat on the bones of the body. This body of ours is neutral and can be used for that which is either good or bad. It is like the automobile I referred to. Carnality refers to this old human mind and spirit and nature which occupies and uses the flesh so that actually the flesh itself is contaminated with sin. (For example, look upon the face of a baby and then look at the face fifty years later. Sin has written indelible lines even upon the surface of the body.) Flesh is inert and has no capabilities or possibilities toward God. It is dominated by a sinful nature, the ramifications of which reach into the inmost recesses of the body and mind.

The frontal lobe of the brain is merely an instrument to devise evil. The motor neurons are ready to spring into evil excesses. The heart of man is desperately wicked. He wants to do the things that are evil, and the body responds. Paul describes his pitiful plight as a slave sold to a Simon Legree taskmaster with a whiplash of evil.

Romans 7:15

STRUGGLE OF A SAVED SOULHere we have the conflict of two natures, the old nature and the new nature. There are definitely two “I’s” in this section. The first “I” is the old nature as he asserts his rights. “For what I would” is what the new nature wants to do. “That do I not"the old nature rebels and won’t do it. “But what I hate"the new nature hates it"that do I”; the old nature goes right ahead and does it. Do you have the experience of this struggle in your Christian life? Do you do something, then hate yourself because you have done it? And you cry out, “God, oh, how I’ve failed You!” I think every child of God has this experience. Paul is speaking of his own experience in this section. Apparently there were three periods in his life. First he was a proud Pharisee under the Mosaic system, kidding himself by bringing the sacrifices and doing other things which he thought would make him right with God.

But the Law was condemning him all the while. Then the second period began when he met Christ on the Damascus Road. This proud young Pharisee turned to Christ as his Savior, but he still felt he could live the Christian life. His new nature said, “I am now going to live for God!” But he failed and was in the arena of struggle and failure for a time. I do not know how long it lastedprobably it was not long. There came a day when there was victory, but Paul did not win it; Christ did.

Paul learned that it was a mattter of yielding, presenting himself and letting the Spirit of God live the Christian life through him.

Romans 7:16

When the old nature breaks the commandment (in this instance it was coveting), then the new nature agrees with the Law that coveting is wrong. Paul was not fighting the Law because he broke it. He was agreeing as a believer that the Law was good.

Romans 7:17

In other words: It is no longer I (new nature) who am working it out, but sin (the old nature) living in me. You see, Paul still had the old nature.

Romans 7:18

Paul learned two things in this struggle, and they are something that many of us believers need to learn. “In me (that old nature we have been talking about) dwells no good thing.” Have you learned that? Have you found there is no good in you? Oh, how many of us Christians feel that we in the flesh can do something that will please God! Many believers who never find out otherwise become as busy as termites and are having about the same effect in many of our churches. They are busy as bees, but they aren’t making any honey! They get on committees, they are chairmen of boards, they try to run the church, and they think they are pleasing God.

Although they are busy, they have no vital connection with the person of Christ. His life is not being lived through them. They are attempting to do it in their own strength by the flesh. They haven’t learned what Paul learned: “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” Let me make it personal. Anything that Vernon McGee does in the flesh, God hates. God won’t have it; God can’t use it. When it is of the flesh, it is no good. Have you learned that? That is a great lesson. The Lord Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh …” (Joh_3:6) (and that is all it will ever be), but “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin …” (1Jn_3:9). My, how wonderful that is! We are given a new nature, and that new nature will not commit sin. I assure you that the new nature won’t commit sin. When I sin, it is the old nature. The new nature won’t do it; the new nature just hates sin. That new nature won’t let me sleep at night; it says, “Look, you are wrong. You have to make it right!” Paul found out something else that is very important for us to learn: “for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” He found there is no good in the old nature and there is no power in the new nature. The new nature wants to serve God, but the carnal man is at enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (see Rom_8:7). But the new nature has no power. I remember when I started out, oh, I was going to live for God! That’s when I fell on my face, and I have never fallen harder than I did then. I thought I could do it myself. But I found there was no power in the new nature. And that is the reason that an evangelist can always get response in a meeting. I’m afraid ninety percent of the decisions that are made in our churches today have been made by Christians who have been living in defeat in their Christian lives.

What they are really saying is, “I want to live for God. I want to do better.” Often an evangelist in a meeting says, “All of you that want to live for God, put up your hand. All of you today that want to come closer to God, put up your hand. Those of you who want to commit your life to God, come forward.” The minute an evangelist says that, he’s got me. That is what I want to do. That new nature of mine says, “I sure would like to live for God.” But there is no power in it.

That is what multitudes of believers fail to recognize. There have been folk who have been coming forward for years, and that’s all they have been doingjust coming forward! They never make any progress. Oh, how they need to understand this truth!

Romans 7:19

Have you experienced this?

Romans 7:20

It is that old nature, my friend, that is causing us trouble.

Romans 7:21

When you are attempting to serve God in the Spirit, have you discovered that the old nature is right there to bring evil? Perhaps an evil thought will come into your mind. Every child of God, regardless of his state, must admit that in every act and in every moment evil is present with him. Failure to recognize this will eventually lead to shipwreck in the Christian life.

Romans 7:22

“The inward man” is the new nature.

Romans 7:23

You see, you don’t get rid of the old nature when you are saved. And yet there is no power in your new nature. “I see a different law” is the enmity of the old nature against God. It causes the child of God who is honest to cry out, as Paul cried:

Romans 7:24

This is not an unsaved man who is crying, “O wretched man that I am”; this is a saved man. The word wretched carries with it the note of exhaustion because of the struggle. “Who is going to deliver me?” He is helpless. His shoulders are pinned to the floorhe has been wrestled down. Like old Jacob, he has been crippled. He is calling for help from the outside.

Romans 7:25

“I thank God [who gives deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is the answer to Paul’s SOS. God has provided deliverance. It introduces chapter 8 in which the deliverance is given in detail. Both salvation and sanctification come through Christ; He has provided everything we need. Run, run and do, the Law commands But gives me neither feet nor hands. Better news the Gospel brings, It bids me fly and gives me wings.